Sonia Gandhi to skip Mamatan ceremony
Congress President Sonia Gandhi will not attend the swearing in ceremony of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee as the West Bengal chief minister on May 20 after their alliance scored a historic win against the Left Front.
Home Minister P Chidambaram will instead join about 3,200 other guests at the Raj Bhawan in Kolkata on Friday along with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister A K Antony and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Shakeel Ahmed, will go to Kolkata on Thursday to attend the meeting of Congress Legislature Party that will decide on their participation in the Banerjee-led government.
Antony could also stay back for the swearing in ceremony, which comes a week after the Congress-TMC alliance scored a landslide win against the ruling Left Front ending their 34-year-old rule in West Bengal.
Right after the victory, Banerjee had personally gone to New Delhi to invite Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the ceremony. Singh had expressed his inability to attend the function due to a foreign tour.
